The Set-Up:  

For the eighth book in the series they revisit a theme from the first book.  That first book sold well and triggered the robust line of eight sequels, all written by William Johnston, and so at this point, with the show rolling towards its penultimate fourth season, why not try and have lightning strike twice?  So, they went back to the super computer as the center of the plot.  This time the super computer is called Number One.  The computer is female, which becomes a plot point later on, but mostly looks like a very large refrigerator with a bunch of buttons and knobs added on.  Number One is the master computer that is used to program the personal computers of the world, or ‘bedside computers’ as it is also termed in the book.  The book’s set-up makes it as though personal computers (never referred to as PCs) were already ubiquitous in American life, and in ten years “will be making the decisions for all citizens.”  I do not remember 1968, but I do remember 1978 and the personal computer was not quite the ubiquitous item that it is being purported to be, at least not by the standards of say, 1998.  Or 1988 for that matter, let alone 2020.  But that aside, we do no ENIAC at the University of Pennsylvania was already in full flight, and the Bowmar Brain was not far away, and in 1969 NASA would get to the Moon with a computer less powerful than a BlackBerry, so I’ll go with the computer being a bubbling issue as far back as 1968.  Number One was under guard of the US government in Washington, but the night before was abducted.  The fear of this was that there were reports of PCs being hacked and that if Number One was hacked this would impact every computer in the world, and it would allow someone to control the decisions every person makes that is dependent on computers.  Hacked.  Except, in 1968 it was not called “hacking” at least not in this book.  In this book the problem was explained that bedside computers had been ‘gimmicked’ and that if KAOS got Number One, she could be ‘brainwash’ and impart KAOS ideas to Number One and this would lead to controlling the world by ‘brainwashing’ people.  As this was pre-WIFI, I assume the brainwashing of the minion home computers was done by new ones being purchased?  Was Number One controlling after-market PCs?  I don’t know.  But to keep the set-up from being longer than the story; we are introduced to a new character in the novel-verse, but one that already existed in the TV show.  And that is the robot Hymie.  Android was not a word yet, and he is also called a computer at times, and since I could not stop hearing Dick Gautier when Hymie spoke, the character was true to the TV show.  Hymie is there because he once had a fling with Number One and would be considered an asset in getting her back.  Then the Chief puts Hymie in charge of the mission and this ticks off Max.  Really, ticks him off.  Like, to the extent that I would put this storyline as the biggest misstep of the book series.  It is played to death; Max whining about Hymie, sabotagging the mission, doing the wrong thing, only to explain it as being Hymie’s fault.  It was a revisited theme that pulled the overall book down.  My first thought was that maybe at book #8 Johnston was just mailing it in, and we were getting the inevitable decline face to face, but the book does have some good ideas, there is the usual imagination and wackiness throughout.  There’s a plot and a story arc, but in hindsight it is just that the Max is jealous storyline was overplayed.  To the point it pulled down the first half of the book.

But this was the set-up.  The story opened in advance of the Chief meeting with Max getting waking up in his apartment.  To foreshadow the plot Max’s decision-making personal computer tells him to wear knickers, a red, white, and blue horizontal striped pullover and eat red jellybeans for breakfast.  He does this, and then meets the Chief with 99 there, along with Hymie.  It was here that they infer from his wardrobe that his bedside computer had already been gimmicked.  Hymie is named the lead on the case, with Max and 99 assisting, a decision the Chief says that comes directly from HIM.  And from there, they are off.

Story:

The story begins as a chase.  Hymie’s superpowers of hearing and sight are what will guide them to finding Number One.  He also can hear her tell-tale beeps from a great distance and can follow tire tracks that no human eye can see.  Their first lead is to where Number One was and Max feels the truck would head to the docks to put her on a barge and off to KAOS’ headquarters.  Hymie’s super vision shows that Number One had been switched mid-trip to another truck that headed inland.  Max finds this dumb and they split up. Of course Hymie was correct, and Max ends up using a Control rent-a-copter to blow up a crate of wrist watches on a ship in the harbor. He also sinks the ship.  Meanwhile the Chief calls to tell him that Hymie has found Number One and that Max should stop thinking and follow Hymie.

Where they end up is in a candy factory, they are nearly drowned in a sea of chocolate, they are nearly chopped into fudgy-nut bars, but they do locate Number One and her two captors; Wayne Ways and Melvin Means.  Which Max responds with, “Means and Ways, got it.”  Subtly humorous was that Max would repeatedly refer to them as Means and Ways, while everyone else refers to them as Ways and Means, and everyone but Max appears to be in on the pun.  And as a team, one comes up with the plan (Ways) and one comes up with the execution (Means).  They meant to be caught by Control, to get the whole capture out of the way (efficiency) and dispatch the Control agents.  Though they do escape with Max, 99, and Hymie about to be chopped into candy bars and figured they had vanquished Control, the ability of Hymie to break the chopping blades and then lift everyone out of the chocolate vat, they went on their way to chase them down.

Number One left a clue with the letters “au” which Hymie interpreted as Fort Knox and Max felt was Las Vegas, because that’s where the money is.  So they break up again, and in Las Vegas Max gets gambling fever; losing all his money, thousands that the Chief wired him and was shining shoes for quarters within a day.  His thought was that Means and Way would have Number One gimmick a slot machine and make a fortune.  So, he needed to play the slots until he found one about to hit a jackpot.  Max never leaves the first machine as he is sure it’s about to hit.  In the throes of gambling fever the Chief calls and talks to 99, and informs them that Max was correct and that Hymie had tracked Ways and Means and Number One to the Leg Up Ranch just outside Vegas.  He tells 99 to leave Max because nothing can cure gambling fever and go assist Hymie.  As 99 says goodbye to Max she tells him that Hymie was wrong and Max right, and that flips the switch in Max’ brain and he no longer has gambling fever.  It also flips a switch in William Johnston’s brain as the remaining time of the book, 66 pages in and 81 from the end, this is the primary setting for the rest of the story and moves along without the hiccups of the first third of the book.

Max and Hymie put fake mustaches on and apply as ranch hands and 99 a red wig and as a guest.  Their first discovery is Hymie hearing the beeps of Number One coming from under the pool.  They also notice that all rooms have bedside computers, and 99 observes that every guest on vacation is happy.  Which is inconceivable because nobody on vacation is ever happy.  Putting the pieces together they realize that the computers have been gimmicked and are brainwashing everyone into thinking they are having a good time.  While working as ranch hands Max and Hymie watch over the steer and horse, which Max cannot tell the difference, he thinks the steer is a cow and keeps looking for its faucets, or trying to put a saddle on it, and nearly killing one guest who thoughts she was going for a pony ride, but was happy anyway because she’s been brainwashed.  She leaves to go enjoy nearly drowning in the pool again. Agent 99’s room has a bedside computer and a sandbox, which makes Max jealous again.  A sandbox!  Max and Hymie work together, and Max uses his KAOS experience to determine that Number One is being held under the pool; yada yada… they get into the secret passage by turning the extra drainpipe at the bottom of the pool which leads to a pressurized doorway in the pool that leads to a booby-trapped passageway that leads to Number One.  And guards, and Ways and Means, and a jail cell, and a control center.  After escaping a trip down there they are figured out when the bedside computer tells the ranch hands to shave their mustaches, and Max and Hymie do not.  Once they are singled out, Ways and Means tear off the fake mustaches and reveal them as Max and Hymie, and then there is a jail scene.  Max did not bring any R&D gadgets for this mission but had some aspirins in his pocket from a previous mission.  They are either actual aspirins or R&D developed explosives (not unlike the peas from The Perilous Pellets) that will “blow up a body of water the size of Lake Ontario.”  Agent 99 figures out where Max and Hymie are and with a karate kick to a guard who ingested an aspirin or an explosive is able to get them out.  Max leads the escape....right back into the cell. 

The final act involves Number One being love sick, she has a crush and instead of diabolical messaging she is unable to be brainwashed because she insists on producing lovelorn poetry.  They assume it is Hymie to blame, and KAOS brainwashes Hymie into being a KAOS agent and he attempts to execute Max and 99. Unfortunately, Ways and Means plan has Hymie to be executed too (did I mention the gelatine poisonous spiders and the faulty electric chair?).  Hymie turns on them, and chooses Control and Max and 99 then have the plan to bring everyone back to Washington and Control HQ in their rental car for a three or four day trip and they cannot contact the Chief. 

 Oh, why is that?  Well, Max’s shoe phone was hijacked by Harold’s mom.  Who’s Harold?  That’s the operator’s brother-in-law, her sister’s husband, and she was getting Harold business as an answering service.  The answering service was facilitated by calling people at 2am and then saying they can stop them calling at 2am by hiring them as an answering service.  It was the 2am call which would lead Max and Hymie to being found out by Ways and Means at the ranch.  When held in the under-pool cell Max and Hymie eventually get to the bribery portion of escape plans, one the guard had been patiently waiting for, and Max offers the shoe phone.  This is page 118.  The guard talks to his mom who lights in with a “you never call!” rattle and after listening, the guard hands the phone back to Max and says it’s not worth it.  Mom is on the line waiting to talk to her son.  As it was the guard says it's not even his mom, it’s a wrong number he once dialed and is now hexed, whatever number he dials she is on it.  Eventually Max tries to call again and when the operator interrupts with Harold we find out that mom is actually Harold’s mom.  He’s not too thrilled either, and for the rest of the book mom is on the line, making any contact between Max and the Chief impossible.  It was a roundabout way to make the shoephone worthless but a creative way to mix in the operator bit.  

So back to the three day trip which begins about 10 pages from the end and with Johnston’s habit of wrapping up in a couple pages, we figure we have another half dozen pages of road trip.  But no, the trip, not unlike Bilbo's return from vanquishing Smaug, is summarized as a success and left at that.  Was it removed?  This book is a couple pages shorter than the others, but not significantly, but it likely was just a way for the author to ramp up one expectation (like the eventual jackpot) and diffuse it without any mention.  The actual book closing was that Number One was still lovelorn, in a totally projected ending it is Max that is Number One’s target of affection. This is wrapped up in the last page of the book, a record by Johnston’s standards.  Max returns to Number One’s quarters with the Chief, Hymie and 99, is told, has to go in there to get her out from her crush, and the last thing is Max going in for the sake of duty and complaining of a headache.  Door shuts, happy clicking from Number One, assumption that Max took one of his “aspirins” and then the sound of a loud explosion from within.  It is the oddest ending in the book series, 99 and Chief ruminate that maybe it was Number One blowing a fuse, and the Chief saying “yes, that’s the way Max would have wanted it.”  That’s a wonderful Wha? Moment, and ends the book with the suddenness of an unexplained explosion.

Overall 

William Johnston ran a fairly tight story in this book series, but had a couple flaws here.  The Max is jealous of Hymie resulted in numerous predictable conclusions that dragged down the opening chapters of the book.  The ending, an explosion, “Max would have wanted it that way” even in the Get Smart universe was vague.  Well, we know Max is fine, there is a ninth book coming, but it still is an odd finish.  The whole gambling fever plot had one surprise twist and it was not that Max clicked back when he found out Hymie had been wrong (and he was right), no it was that Max played the same machine and sunk thousands into it without hitting the jackpot and then walked away.  And Johnston did not go for the easy layup punchline that someone hits wanders by and hits the jackpot on their first quarter.  So, is that something to give a hat tip to?  I guess, he walked away from an easy punchline and just went with the more in-character story of Max walking away and not caring what happened with the machine. 

The idea of what a computer can do and what it was in 1968 is still largely a function of imagination, and we are not here to clear up any holes in the plot.  Just remember that if KAOS can brainwash the mother of all personal computers then it can control the world.  As Hymie surmised, KAOS was test running the control of brainwashed bedside computers to brainwash people.  And if KAOS’ test works then they can “control the world simply by controlling the world’s bedside computers.”  Nice foreshadowing on smartphones and the internet and social media and all that goes with it.  Who knew?  Well, William Johnston did back in 1968.It is for this glimpse into a satirical take on personal computers and their brainwashing future from fifty years ago that makes this an interesting story.  The flaws are there, and understandable eight books into the series.  It is evident in using Hymie to bring a favorite character from the series into the book series, but using him to advance the super computer ideas of the first book.  The tightness of the story, some loose ends and big jumps abound, but hey, you get a “magic margin” reference for those that remember electric typewriters so at least give it the nod for the nostalgia value.  I would go solid C, story elements in the B range but choppy editing and the Max is jealous bit sits it back down in a C.

Note: Oh and the title is a pure pun on Control and Max “losing control” with a little “c.”  Gambling Fever and the Hymie jealousy, were acts of being out of control, as was Hymie being in charge of the mission and Max not being in “control.”  But he does not lose “Control.”  the title does not point towards Agent 86 resulting in the Control organization being lost.  This despite the fact the title puts Control in it’s TV show acronym caps form: CONTROL.  The books never use it as the undisclosed acronym and always spell it as Control.  So, the confusion would be reinforced through the decision to cap lock CONTROL in the title, but it’s a pun; the control he loses is not the organization.

By the Numbers:

Pages: 7-148

Chapters: 10

Control Agents: Agent 99, Hymie

Non-Control Side Kick: None

Non-Control Absent-minded Side-Kick: Number One

Baddies: KAOS’ Melvin Means, Wayne Ways.  Brainwashed “KAOS Hymie”

R&D Gadgets: Leftovers from prior mission: Aspirins.  Are they aspirins or Control explosives capable of blowing a hoel the size of Lake Superior?

Operator Gag:High-level of involvement.  The operator’s brother-in-law is Harold (Harold had previously been her nephew, so maybe this is Harold Sr.?). First the operator has a scam with her brother-in-law about calling at 2am and annoying the recipient and then hiring them as an answering service so they’d get no 2am calls. Then they shifted to getting Harold’s mother on the line and using the ‘he never calls’ gag, she ends up talking endlessly and never allows Max to get a call to the Chief.  So, for blocking the calls to the Chief this was a creative strategy.

Review by Brian DiMarco

© 2020 Brian DiMarco